For many, the big highlight of the New York Comic Con this weekend was the chunk of footage they screened from Pixar’s upcoming animated film, “Up.” How big was the chunk? A little more than forty-five minutes worth. Not too shabby.
Director Pete Docter and producer Jonas Rivera briefly introduced the movie, reminding us that some of the sound effects and score were incomplete. He said that after today they would be running the film to Skywalker Ranch to finish the sound mix (and then take part in some “Animal House”-esque hijinks a la “Fanboys”). He then said the animators had “seven short weeks” to finish the animation, in preparation of the film’s May 29th release date.
Sadly, the footage we saw was not in 3-D. (“Up” will be the tenth Pixar film and the first to be released in Disney Digital 3-D.)
The Story: Two Acts Or 45 Minutes of Footage
The footage we saw was the first two acts of the film, essentially. We meet our main character, curmudgeonly old man Carl Fredrickson (voiced by Ed Asner), first as a child, in an old movie theater watching newsreel footage of a Lindbergh-ian adventurer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). Muntz supposedly went to South America and brought back a mythical beast, but it was not ever proven. While walking back to his home, he runs into a fellow adventure enthusiast named Ellie. As things go, they immediately connect and, in a beautifully orchestrated montage, we see their life – they fall in love, grow old, Ellie has a miscarriage (seriously – this is in the opening act of a summer kids’ movie), and Ellie dies.
This section had an almost lyrical quality to it, and reminded me of the beauty and subtlety of “Wall-E’s” prolonged opening sequence. There’s a bit during this montage where they show Ellie tying Carl’s tie, over and over again, that conveys so much while saying so little.
As this section of the movie concluded, there were more than a few sniffles audible in the audience. It’s pretty powerful stuff.
Now, old man Carl decides that he’s going to follow through on the dream that the young adventurers had together – to travel to South America and traverse the landscape that Charles Muntz had previously. It’s this dreamy landscape where mysterious creatures supposedly roam (it’s also the last known whereabouts of a disgraced Muntz…)
Carl is a balloon salesman and ties a shitload of balloons to his home until it floats away, in a wondrous, Miyazaki-like flight of fancy. (Trust us, when this thing is in 3-D it will result in more than one gobsmacked “wow” from the audience.) The only problem is that Carl has a stowaway in the form of Russell, a vaguely Asian boy scout who is desperate to complete his badge collection by “assisting” an elderly person.
Potential Problems
This was the point of the movie where we started to waffle. What has been so nice about these last few Pixar movies is that they stayed away from the buddy comedy model that defined the company’s formidable years. (This isn’t a knock, just an observation. Think about it.) But, we’re back in buddy comedy territory here. Instead of two mismatched monsters or two mismatched toys, we’re saddled with two mismatched adventures – an old man and a young man. No women. No sir.
It should be noted, too, that this movie is absolutely hilarious. There are some visual gags that are truly astounding (so astounding, in fact, that we can’t give them away here).
Once they reach the jungle of South America, they meet up with Kevin, a large, Dodo-like bird (the same one Muntz went searching for all those years ago) and a pack of dogs that have collars that translate their thoughts into dialogue. One of the dogs is voiced by Delroy Lindo, which is pretty awesome.
Too Sci-Fi For Fan Boys?
The whole “talking dog” business has gotten the Internet fanboys in something of a tizzy, saying it stretches things too far into the realms of science fiction. But those that saw the footage struck everyone as a boys adventure story (if one of those boys was a geriatric man who eats dinner at 4:3o in the afternoon). In keeping with that adventure story throwback, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that the dogs’ collars, like Muntz’s blimp, is actually more in tune with “steam punk” literature, which truthfully is more historically adventurous than out-and-out sci-fi.
So we guess instead of a buddy comedy, once it hits the jungle it becomes a “troupe” comedy, with an old man, a little kid (who may or may not be Asian), a monster bird and a talking dog. In other words: typical Hollywood bullshit. How many times have we heard or seen this before?
An Instant Classic or A Distant Box-Office Disaster?
And here’s where it gets hard to say whether or not “Up” will be another Pixar classic or the animation studio’s “Black Cauldron” (i.e. a weird and emotionally distant box office disaster), because having seen half the movie, and knowing who the villain is being set up as, it’s a lot to swallow. The movie’s pace is so clipped, with so much happening without a whole lot of background information, that it’ll be interesting to see whether the last act brings everything together or leaves us scratching our heads, questioning how it went so wrong. It’ll also be tough to carry that emotionality of the first act through, after we’ve been bombarded with so much gentle magic and adventurism.
So far, we’re cautiously optimistic, and sure that seeing it in 3-D will make it even more razzle-dazzling. Plus, we’re really looking forward to seeing more of those talking dogs. At the end, what struck me the most about the “Up” presentation was how far-out it was, conceptually – and this is after the big-time riskiness of “Wall-E.” Only Pixar can follow up their feel good post-apocalyptic kids movie with a feel good kids movie about the gracefulness of aging and death, although we hear “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” explores similar themes. – Drew Taylor